


peel the scars off my back (i don’t need them anymore)

by brunetteandblond



Series: Moving On [8]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Dark Past, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, Nicole is there to hold her hand, Protective Nicole Haught, Wynonna deals with her shit, Wynonna finally tells someone about her past, Wynonna's past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-09-03 03:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16754848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brunetteandblond/pseuds/brunetteandblond
Summary: Nicole finds a box full of Wynonna's old stuff. She becomes immersed into Wynonna's past and learns exactly how horrible things were for the brunette. Wynonna finds her snooping and finally decides to talk about what she's kept hidden inside for so long.Part 8 of the Moving On series but can be read alone. All you need to know if you haven't read the first part of the series is that Waverly and Doc are gone so Nicole and Wynonna are raising Alice together. In this story, Alice is five.





	peel the scars off my back (i don’t need them anymore)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fauchevalent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauchevalent/gifts).



> Get ready for the feels, everybody.

Wynonna refused to clean the attic. In fact, she told Nicole that she’d prefer eating vegetables than cleaning that room (which was saying a lot). The brunette told her that no one bothered to clean the attic for decades and that no one needed to try to clean it. She explained how it was just a dumping ground for things that they could pretend that they might need later.

“We could give so much stuff away!” Nicole argued as she and Wynonna watched their five-year-old run around the field in their backyard. They sat on the grass and pulled on the weeds. “Maybe we could even change the room into something we would actually use.”

The brunette shook her head and sighed. “It’s been a giant mess since it was first built, Haught. There is no cleaning it.”

Nicole held in an irritated groan. She knew that the brunette was stubborn. She just hoped that when she cleaned the attic (without the deputy’s permission) Wynonna wouldn’t be too angry. Besides, Nicole planned on telling her ‘I told you so’ when the room was nice and clean.

But her complaints soon washed away when Alice ran up to them with the biggest grin spread across her face. Alice had her two front teeth missing and both her parents laughed at the sight. Her pigtails bounced when she sat down on Nicole’s lap.

“Oof,” Nicole muttered. “You’re getting heavy, girlie. My legs can hardly withstand your jumps anymore.”

“Or maybe you’re just getting old,” Alice suggested with a shrug of her shoulders.

Wynonna burst into laughter and high fived her daughter. Sometimes (okay, almost all the time), the two women were so similar.

“Ha ha,” Nicole grimaced as she stuck her tongue out at Wynonna. “If I’m getting old, then your mom must be an old lady. She’s older than me.”

Alice giggled and laid down on her dad’s lap. She looked up at the sky and felt an unwavering sensation of warmth, and it wasn’t just coming from the sun. This was her home and she loved it more than anything. 

* * *

Nicole took a day off to clean. _To clean._ After spending just one hour in the attic, she already started to regret going in there. It being a mess was an understatement.

Most of the crap was parts of old kitchen and furniture pieces. And none of it went together. She considered just throwing it all away. They would never need a microwave that didn’t work or towels that should have been white but were now dingy and yellow. She’d give it away, but most of it was utterly disgusting.

She had hoped to find pictures or something cute from Waverly and Wynonna’s childhood. But she didn’t find anything like that. Wynonna had told her that no one took many pictures when they were younger, and now Nicole believed her. It almost made her angry that there was nothing inside that had to do with their childhood.

Nicole was about to leave when she found a large chest. She had expected it to be Mama Earp’s or something like that. But she was surprised when she opened it to find what looked like items that belonged to a teenager. There were several journals, a small blanket, band posters, a small box of jewelry, and a small blade. It all screamed Wynonna.

The sheriff knew it was an invasion of privacy, but she couldn’t help but peek into the journals. The writing was messy and seemed angry, but it was legible. She smiled when the first notebook she picked up was full of Wynonna’s favorite lyrics. The book contained everything from The Smiths to U2 to Metallica to The Beatles to Tegan and Sara.

She put the notebook down and picked up a different one. She opened it and gazed at what seemed like a book full of poetry and prose. Skimming through the whole book, she could tell that Wynonna had talent. The words were heavy and sincere. Nicole didn’t even know Wynonna liked to write. It was like seeing a whole new side to the woman she thought she knew better than anyone.

She went on to the next one that actually seemed like a diary. Every page seemed to detail her feelings. Most of them were angst-ridden and filled with curse words. 

_“I hate writing in this goddamn thing. Dr. Kolman doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. It’s not like writing is going to somehow make everything go away. Besides, if the meds can’t stop me from being crazy, nothing else can. She keeps asking me about the pills like there’s a reason for what I did other than the fact that I’m fucked up. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Nothing matters anymore.”_

Nicole closed the book and shivered.

“So you found it,” Wynonna said as she entered the room and found Nicole reading what she was trying to keep hidden.

The redhead jumped and turned around to find the brunette staring at her. She looked down at the book and frowned.

“I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. What is this?”

Wynonna sighed and walked up to her friend. This was exactly the reason why she didn’t want the woman snooping through her things. She took the journal from Nicole’s hands and sat down. She knew that she should explain. But she had tried so hard to live her life without thinking about her broken youth.

“I haven’t talked about this to anyone,” Wynonna whispered and put her head in her hands. The last thing she wanted was to see Nicole’s pity. “Not even Waverly. I’m not proud of the person I was.”

Nicole sat down next to the brunette and said, “You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to. I get it if you don’t want to revisit those memories.”

The feeling of the journal in her hands caused the brunette to start shaking. Memories started to resurface so she bit her lip to try to bring herself back to the present. But all that did was draw blood. Tears bubbled up her eyes. She hadn’t felt this way in so long.

“I don’t-- I want to. I want to be able to talk about it. But even thinking about it, it fucks me up.”

The redhead wrapped her arms around the brunette and let the woman put her head on her lap (much like Alice would).

“After the massacre, I started having anxiety,” Nicole admitted as she brushed Wynonna’s hair with her fingers. “I repressed the memories of the actual thing, but it was hard to leave my house. It was hard to wake up in the morning. I went to school, I went home, and I didn’t do anything else. I was always different. I didn’t fit in. I was good at school and I found my home in sports, but there weren’t any friendships that were long lasting. I was so alone, Wynonna. And things were sometimes very dark. But then I went to the academy. I started meeting more people like me. And then when I came here, it was different. I met you, Waverly, Dolls, Jeremy, Robin. You all became my family. My point is, our past doesn’t have to dictate our future. What happened to you sucked. But this is your life now. And I know it’s hard because we went through trauma. But we don’t have to let it control us anymore.”

Wynonna felt Nicole's pants becoming soggy from her tears. She felt slightly embarrassed about the whole thing, but the sheriff continued to hold her lovingly.

The brunette wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn’t know if she was ready to talk about what happened. But she trusted Nicole.

“When people continuously call you crazy for three years, you eventually start to believe it,” Wynonna explained simply in a quiet, almost frightened, voice. “They gave me so many different meds, so many diagnoses, so many different kinds of therapy, so many different kinds of Institutions. It was too much for a fifteen-year-old. It was all just too much. And nobody was there.”

Nicole nodded and squeezed the brunette tighter against her, reminding Wynonna that she was there for her. Always.

“I was forced to write these diary things. I think I wrote in this journal in my third Institution after I tried to end my life. And the most ironic thing was, I tried to die with the pills that were prescribed to me.”

Nicole’s heart broke for the woman in her arms. She cared about Wynonna so much, and to hear that she had been in this much pain, it made her want to cry, punch a wall, and hold Wynonna forever all at the same time.

“I was a kid,” Wynonna continued. “I made a lot of mistakes. After I killed my father, I went a little off the rails. After I lost all the people I cared about because of my ‘lies’ about Revenants, alcohol became my best friend. I was thirteen when I was first put into an Institution. I was only in there for four months. They kept trying to diagnose me, but eventually, I think they gave up on me. I was fourteen when I discovered drugs. I was then put into a more rehabilitation type place. There, they told me I was depressed. They were probably right. That one was short, too. I got out after five or so months. The intrusive thoughts came a year later. I went on a path of self-destruction. I did anything illegal I could find. Sex, drugs, alcohol, stealing, driving insanely, and anything else you could think of. After half a year of Juvie, the second I got out, I took a few too many pills. The next place was also the last place I was in. At this point, I was good at lying, so I was able to pretend like the meds and shock therapy was working. I just wanted to get out so I could stop hurting. That place... it made things worse if you could believe it. At that place, they finally were able to convince me I really was crazy. So I stayed to myself until I graduated. I left the country and spent the next decade alone and drunk. I ran away from Waverly because I was afraid of tainting her. Like my craziness was some sort of sickness I could pass on to her. And then I came back. And Dolls told me I wasn’t crazy. Big ole shock.”

“I didn’t even know,” Nicole muttered solemnly. “I mean, Waverly mentioned a few things. I knew a few things from your criminal file. And you’d joke about things but… I didn’t know. I’m so sorry that you ever had to go through that.”

“You couldn’t do anything about it,” Wynonna said and turned her head so that she could see the redhead crying. “Nicole, listen to me when I say that you couldn’t have done anything about it. We didn’t know each other. And we can’t go back in time.”

“Doesn’t make me not want to,” Nicole retorted toughly. “I’d do anything to change what happened to you. Anything, Wynonna. You know how much I lo--” She stopped. They never told each other something like that in recent years. 

Wynonna’s blue eyes stared into Nicole’s brown ones. The moment was incredibly intense. They had certainly gotten close over the four years of co-parenting. They shared a bed, worked together, laughed together, learned each other’s facial expressions by heart, seen each other naked multiple times on accident, and raised a daughter. Their bond was strong and their protectiveness of each other was fierce. Love was the only word that could describe that. But after everything, it was still hard to say it out loud.

Nicole, of course, had said it to her when Waverly was around. Whether it was jokingly, to annoy her, or that one time she told her she ‘kinda loved her too,’ it was never this serious.

“I love you,” Wynonna whispered and kissed her best friend’s forehead. After seeing Nicole’s surprised confusion, the brunette added, “I know I should say it more. I’m so appreciative of everything you have done for me. You’ve saved me, Haught. Not just as Alice’s parent but as my friend. Best friend. I love you.”

A smile grew from the redhead’s lips. “I love you, too, Wynonna Earp. And I think you’re the one that saved me.”

Wynonna let out a soft chuckle and replied, “Maybe we saved each other.”

“Yeah,” Nicole agreed with a slight nod of her head. “Maybe we did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please review if you can! If you liked this, go read my other one-shots. They're pretty cool.
> 
> Ooh, and if you have any other comments or if you have any suggestions/requests, you can message me in tumblr @haught-n-cold-gay
> 
> I'd love to hear from you!


End file.
